That's Marlene McKinnon
by aejaycee
Summary: Yes, Sirius wanted to be the one to show his godson the photograph, the one to tell him about her. But as he practiced his speech in the mirror that morning, he couldn't make the words sound natural. "That's Marlene McKinnon," he would have said, "She was killed two weeks after this was taken….they got my whole family." Because that's what she was, really.


**_ "…that's_ _Marlene McKinnon_, _she was killed two weeks after this was taken_,_ they got her whole family."_**

Alastor Moody's voice floated across the noisy room, and Sirius found his head snapping toward it with a start. There was Mad Eye, arm around Harry as he jabbed his scarred fingers into the photographed faces of the first Order of the Phoenix.

This should have been his moment. He should have been standing with his godson, arm around his shoulder, passing on memories of people he'd lost. He would have sat the boy down, taking him through each person carefully, making sure that with each lost friend there would be a story to tell.

Sirius had brought that photograph down with him tonight with the intention of passing it on to Harry, but he couldn't. He'd wound up passing it to Mad Eye at the last minute, asking him to show it to the boy, saying perhaps he'd have some interest in it.

Yes, Sirius had wanted to be the one to do this, but he couldn't.

He remembered this morning, finding the dusty photograph on the mantle of his bedroom, torn around the edges and hidden behind old candlesticks that were lined up and had never been lit. He remembered the echoing pang in the pit of his stomach when he saw James and Lily smiling up at him from the center of the group, waving with big grins on their faces, just as they had been on the day it was taken.

Today, he had decided with determination, today would be the day he would pass this onto his godson. He could tell him everything.

Mad Eye had now moved onto talking about the Longbottoms and Emmeline Vance, but his voice was playing on a loop in Sirius's head. He had heard it, out loud. The name that he couldn't say himself.

**_ "…that's_ _Marlene McKinnon_, _she was killed two weeks after this was taken_,_ they got her whole family."_**

_He had been fourteen the first time he'd spoken to her. It had happened in this very house, where he had grown up. He could remember the cold manner in which his mother handed him the stuffy tie and starched shirt she expected him to wear in the presence of company. He could remember her disdainful look when she had sneered at how unkempt he looked with his long hair and told him he better not cause any trouble._

_He didn't, for the record, cause any trouble that night. Trouble arrived on its own, in the form of a fourteen year old girl with dark curls and twinkling eyes. _

_"On Behalf of The Ancient and Most Noble House of Black," Sirius had said, just as he had been instructed, but through gritted teeth and a fine layer of sarcasm, "We welcome you to our home." _

_Ha! Home. That was a good one. He wondered how long he would have to stand here, answering the door, both pretending he was happy calling this place a home and pretending he was honored to welcome people into it._

_The formality of the exchange was echoed by the father of the family currently waiting to be let in, as he leaned down and gripped Sirius's hand in greeting, a sign of respect that Sirius had rarely been shown in his lifetime. The family entered the grand foyer, and they didn't seem too bad. Stiff and formal just like everyone else, but not terribly unfriendly._

_It was common, at the time, for his parents to host these lavish parties. All well-known Pureblood families were invited, until they had a reason not to be. The Potters had not accepted the invitation even once; maybe that was why Sirius took such an immediate liking to them. _

_This family, however, had never been over before either. The father was tall but plain, with gray-flecked sandy and a strong jawline. His wife was beautiful, but in an understated way that many mothers were; her hair was pinned back regally and her dress fell all the way to the floor in a wave of blue silk. The two of them passed by Sirius, moving to give their coats to the waiting house elf and join the party._

_"Come along, children." The mother called behind her, turning around only momentarily to ensure that the two figures left standing in the foyer would follow quickly._

_Their son was tall and wide, like an athlete, with a shock of dark hair and a menacing resting face. He moved first to follow his parents, taking his younger sister by the wrist and jerking her forward along with him._

_The girl was the last one Sirius noticed, but she would be the only one he continued to notice for the remainder of the evening. She was small, a full head shorter than Sirius himself, but had a look about her that plainly spoke to the world: she was a hurricane waiting to happen._

_She had wide, shiny chestnut curls that framed her heart shaped face. Her eyes were wide and curious, and never in his life could he remember seeing a more beautiful rendition of the color brown. But the dress she wore was a starched and formal as the tie choking Sirius, the bow in her hair twice as intimidating. He wrote her off as just another Pureblood pawn to be wedded off to the highest bidder when she reached the age._

_"Sorry," Sirius called after them suddenly. "I forgot to get your family name." Working the door was a humiliation indeed, but it beat mingling with his parents' crowd and he wasn't eager to mess up and lose his excuse for hiding out._

_The large boy kept walking, but his sister turned her head as she was pulled along, catching Sirius's eye and shooting him a small, friendly smile when she answered._

_"McKinnon!"_

_Dinner was unbearable for Sirius._ _His father gave him a sharp kick under the table when he reached for the wrong fork during the salad course. His Pureblood-perfect brother and cousins sat alongside him like ducks in a row, staying silent and doing as they were told. Sirius stared down at his plate, trying to keep his face neutral and his thoughts on heading back to school in three weeks instead of fuming, losing his temper. He'd done that before and it hadn't earned him anything but a swift beating from his father._

_"Sirius," his mother hissed at him evenly, from across the table, her face obscured by shadows thrown from the candlelight. "Perhaps you should go and check that everything is running smoothly in the kitchens." _

_He heard it for what it really was: _If you're going to be such a disappointment, you don't need to be in my presence to do so.

_Sullenly, Sirius stood up from the table and excused himself, folding his napkin over his plate as he realized he wouldn't be asked to return to the meal. He hated sitting among these people with all of his heart, but the rejection didn't sting any less because of it._

_Absently, Sirius wandered out into the entrance hall, doing all he could to still the rage that was bubbling up inside him. One day, he would show them. He would leave this horrible, wretched place and never come back. They'd regret it then. He knew what skeletons hung in their closets._

_About to start up the stairs, Sirius paused when he saw the front door to the house was open slightly, letting in the stale summer breeze. Curiously, he walked over to it, poking his head out onto the front steps to check the premises before he locked up. _

_With a start, he realized he had just come face to face with the youngest McKinnon._

_She was startled to see him as well, so much so that she almost toppled backwards from her hiding place, perched on the rail of the stairs, half obscured by darkness._

_"Oh, it's just you," she sighed as she steadied herself, a smirk forming on her face. She didn't look quite so formal now. "I thought it was my dad, he would have lost his head if he saw me out here."_

_Determining that the threat was now nonexistent, the girl reached out onto the window ledge and retrieved the cigarette that she had been smoking before she was interrupted._

_"What are you doing out here?" Sirius asked, furrowing his brow at the strange girl, who had seemed so prim only an hour ago._

_"Smoke?" She offered him a drag of her cigarette with an outstretched hand, but he refused with a curt shake of his head. "Scared?" the girl teased him, raising an eyebrow._

_"Of course not," he snapped, folding his arm across his chest with annoyance._

_She ignored him with a cheeky wink. "That's alright. I won't tell anyone."_

_"You're at Hogwarts with me aren't you?" Sirius said with a start, suddenly placing her. "You're in Gryffindor, in my year. I didn't recognize you earlier. You're friends with Evans and Meadowes." _

_She blinked at him a few times, taking a long drag and letting the smoke escape from her lips slowly, swirling white patterns rising into the air._

_"That's me," she said, her voice sounding strained. "But lucky for me, I get to spend my summers here putting on a good show so mum and daddy won't lose their high-power friends…..no offense."_

_"None taken; believe me." Sirius said, a little more heartily than he had intended. This girl was alright._

_"I'm Marlene, by the way." She said, turning her head to face him so that it was visible in the flickering lights of the torches mounted by the door, finishing her cigarette and flicking it into the grass. "And I hope you don't mind me telling you how ridiculous you look in that awful tie."_

_That was the summer Sirius decided to take up smoking. _

.

Mad Eye had moved on again, jostling the photographed figures around with her fingertip as he rattled on and on. Nobody else in the busy kitchen seemed to be paying attention; Ron was still prattling on about his new broomstick, Lupin was reassuring Hermione that she would make a fine prefect. It was harder to hear Moody now, or perhaps it had been the mention of Marlene that merely caught his attention, but he was saying something about Benjy Fenwick and how they found him in pieces.

Sirius remembered that day well, but that wasn't the memory his brain called to the surface. Instead, many of them overlapped all at once, blending together in a montage that spelled out his time at school.

_They were fourteen the year the school hosted a Halloween ball. Marlene had rolled her eyes when he asked her to go with him, but they danced close all night. Her hair smelled like cigarette smoke and flowers, and she didn't say anything when he stepped on her toes._

_He was fifteen and in Hogsmeade on a date with a girl who had blonde hair and bright green eyes. She was beautiful, but when she leaned in to kiss him his eyes went over her shoulder, landing on Marlene laughing at the bar with her friends._

_They were sixteen and all of their friends had nicked bottles of Firewhiskey and snuck out to the Quidditch pitch to drink them. They were drunk, and Marlene smiled a big smile as she lay on the grass and pointed out all the stars by name. When nobody was looking, they snuck off to the locker room. She pushed him up against a wall and kissed him. She had a boyfriend, and he promised not to tell._

_He was seventeen when she showed up at his new flat during the Christmas holidays. She helped him decorate the tree and cooked him his first real meal in weeks. When it was time for her to leave, she asked if he wouldn't mind her spending the night; it was too cold to travel. When fire died down, she climbed into bed next to him and he kissed her until the sun came up. _

_._

"Alright, mate?" Remus's voice jerked Sirius back into reality, and he turned to face his friend with a startled nod.

"I'm fine," Sirius replied, exhaling until his lungs were empty, watching Mad Eye with Harry. His godson looked uncomfortable, and Sirius knew for sure now that he should have been the one to do this. Harry's shoulders went rigid, and Sirius knew that Moody must be nearing the end.

"Sirius, when he still had short hair..." Mad Eye's voice floated through the kitchen, and this time Remus heard it too, face hardening as he clapped a hand onto Sirius's shoulder for support, understanding. Harry would be seeing his parents faces right now.

"I can't even imagine what's it's like," Sirius said to his friend in a low voice so that nobody would overhear. "Never meeting your parents. At least I had the choice to leave."

"There are worse things," Remus said quietly, averting his eyes, keeping his gaze trained on the surface of the table.

"Worse things indeed," Sirius muttered in agreement.

.

_He was twenty-one when he and Marlene moved in together officially. She had been spending every night with him anyway, and it was a lot more cut and dry for Order business if they could be reached at the same address. Or, at least that was the excuse they used. They couldn't keep their hands off each other. _

_Marlene had moved all of her boxes into the living room and then didn't bother unpacking a single one. She ran around with him in a pair of blue jeans and one of his old tshirts, painting sample colors onto the walls and baking cookies for breakfast. One day, when she was at work he arranged all her full boxes into a fort in the middle of the floor and they sat in it for hours telling stories, necks ducked low so they would fit._

_She filled the apartment with a light and laughter that Sirius had never known. It took him a few weeks to realize that he finally thought of a place as a home. All of the things that had gone wrong, all of his childhood misery, all of the confusion going on in the world...all of it was validated. Here was his bright spot. _

_One day he came home, and there wasn't any off-key singing coming from the kitchen. She didn't run to the door and jump into her arms, wrapping her legs around his waist and knocking him backwards into the wall._

_"MARLENE," he had boomed, his voice edging on panic. They had just lost Dorcas and the Prewett brothers; if she was missing-_

_"Here," came her voice, as she shuffled out of the bathroom quietly. Her eyes were heavy and red, it was clear she had just been crying._

_"What's wrong, Mar?" He was at her side in a few strides, taking her by the shoulders and checking for any injuries, any physical evidence that she had been hurt._

_"Okay...okay, we need to talk." Her voice shook when she spoke, and she sounded like she was going to cry again. "Sirius...please don't leave me. Something happened, and I need you to not freak out,"_

_"What are you talking about, Marlene?" Sirius asked sharply, heart pounding in his ears. She wrung her hands nervously in front of him, refused to catch his gaze._

_"I know we've never talked about it, but I always assumed you wouldn't want..." Marlene exhaled again, fanning her face with her hand so that her composure was regained. "And I've been thinking about it all day, it could wind up being quite good actually..."_

_"You're scaring me, out with it."_

_"Sirius, I am...I'm pregnant." _

_She winced when she said it, but he saw the sparkle behind the surface of her eyes. She wanted this, she wanted it so badly, but she was afraid about how he would take it._

_"You're pregnant," It wasn't a question, it was a frozen, lame statement._

_"We're pregnant." She corrected hesitantly, scanning his face for any sign of reaction._

_"We're going to have a baby." Sirius said it out loud, and something inside of him stirred. The smile that split across his face was astronomical. Marlene smiled too, a giant, sparkling miracle of a smile made only more beautiful by the tears that were still streaming down her cheeks._

_Sirius remembered dropping to his knees in front of her, hugging her around the legs as he planted his lips against the skin of her stomach. _

_This was what it was, then, to have a family you loved. There would never be a child more fiercely cared for on the planet. _

_He could already see Marlene rocking a tiny dark creature in her arms. She was a night owl, she would knock those night feedings out of the way, no problem. Fuck the war, nobody would touch a hair on this kid's head. He could see a little thing with big, sparkling eyes getting on Hogwarts Express for the first time, riding his or her first broom, buying their first wand. _

_His heart was fuller than he ever thought possible._

_That night, the two of them arrived at the Order headquarters and shared the news with everyone else. Lily and Marlene shrieked and launched into each others arms; the Potters son was almost one, their kids would grow up together. James, Remus, and Peter clapped him on the back in the manliest way they could, but Sirius could see the excitement under the surface._

_It was the happiest day of his life._

_To commemorate it, the entire Order got together and took a photograph so that they would never forget._

_Two weeks later, Sirius had again returned home to a quiet apartment._

_Marlene looked like she was sleeping, curled up on her side in bed. She was even beautiful in death. It would be Remus who found him later, sitting in the corner of his bedroom, staring blankly ahead. He didn't have the heart to move her._

_The doctors would later tell Sirius that even if he had been there, there would have been no hope of saving the baby. Marlene wasn't far along enough yet- they couldn't even determine if it was a boy or a girl._

_Couldn't even tell if it was a boy or a girl? But the baby was real. He had pictured it, planned out a life with it. He had loved it._

_"They got her whole family," the other members of the Order would say, because they were afraid to say what really happened. It's true that her parents and brother were also killed. It's also true that Sirius lost any hope he'd had of a real, unbroken life._

_._

"What's that you've got there, Mad-Eye?" Sirius said, getting the attention of the older man. Harry was visible uncomfortable, and he had to do his godfatherly duty by offering the boy an escape. One day, he would sit Harry down, he would make him understand the situation.

**_ "…that's_ _Marlene McKinnon_, _she was killed two weeks after this was taken_,_ they got her whole family."_**

Yes, Sirius wanted to be the one to show his godson the photograph of the Order, the one to tell him about her. But as he practiced his speech in the mirror that morning, he couldn't make the words sound natural. "That's Marlene McKinnon_," _he would have said, "She was killed two weeks after this was taken_…._they got my whole family."

Because that's what she was, really.

She was Marlene McKinnon.


End file.
